Fernando Alonso says his target is to have a perfect weekend after the Spaniard topped the lap times during Friday's free practice session.

"The target is to finally have a perfect weekend," Alonso told Spanish reporters. "We have done some good Fridays before, but we need to do a perfect Saturday and a perfect Sunday.

"If it is behind the Red Bull and we are not quick enough to challenge them then okay, but if we can be in front of them then even better."

Despite his good start to the weekend and the fact that he refuses to write off his title chances, Alonso remains realistic about reading too much into Friday's lap times after variable weather hit the Hockenheim circuit.

"Friday is not very representative of the times, and perhaps this Friday was even more strange because of the track conditions, which changed constantly. We tested everything we wanted to test. Now we have to analyse all the data we have, but it was a positive Friday.

"But we won't know how competitive we are until tomorrow and the grid will not have changed radically from Silverstone to here and so McLaren, Red Bull and us will be up there."

Alonso, who has endured a disappointing season after winning the season's opening race in Bahrain, says his goal is now to beat the championship leaders starting with Lewis Hamilton and have a strong second half of the season.

"You have to try to finish ahead of the leader so the gap doesn't increase," he added. "Right now it's a McLaren so we have to try to finish ahead of them to be less than 47 points away in the next race.

"If in the next race it's a Red Bull, then we'll have to try to finish ahead of that Red Bull and so on. Especially we need to have a better second half of the season, with more podiums."

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